posted on 2022-11-17, 17:36authored byPooja Varma, K. Arun Joshi Reddy, D. Amaranatha Reddy, Madhusudana Gopannagari, Tae Kyu Kim
Solar-driven water splitting using a photoelectrochemical
(PEC)
mechanism is of great practical interest for developing renewable
energy systems. In general, BiVO4 photoanodes are considered
to be a promising candidate for efficient PEC solar energy conversion.
However, their solar energy conversion performance is negatively affected
by the high recombination rate of electron–hole pairs. Despite
the development of numerous techniques, combined attempts to engineer
both hole-blocking (bottom) and hole-storage (top) interfaces in BiVO4 photoanodes are still lacking. Here, we demonstrate the role
of SnO2 hierarchical microspheres and ferrihydrite nanosheets
as hole-blocking and hole-storage layers for efficient water oxidation
by BiVO4 photoanodes. Furthermore, the key contributions
of the size of the SnO2 hierarchical microspheres and the
thicknesses of the BiVO4 and FN layers, as well as the
role of the active area for illumination, are studied through several
analytical techniques. The optimized SnO2@BiVO4/FN photoanodes exhibited a remarkable photocurrent density of 3.28
± 0.2 mA/cm2 at 1.23 V versus RHE, along with excellent
stability (10 h). Overall, the results demonstrate that the proposed
fabrication method represents a substantial advancement in the development
of affordable water splitting cells.